This Venezuela proverb came to mind many months ago, while we were living in a far and inhospitable country of the far south of Latin America and it was time to write it down here.

In my homeland, we use to say this proverb, “no one can say you didn’t dance” when we have to deal with other people underestimating us or showing us contempt, usually at a professional level. These negative attitudes toward us may be motivated because they don’t know anything about us (nor they want to), because of jealousy, selfpreservation instinct or even envy of our features. What “you danced” refers to all experiences and knowledge that we have gathered along the way, no matter if they are empirical or formal. For example, if anyone underestimates our expertice (which we have) at the moment of applying for a job and the result is that we are discarded for a mere whim instead of an objective assessment, we should not despair, because we know that we know, we know that we are capable and we can prove it, because no one can say you didn’t dance!

From Caracas to Lyon: A road toward sustainable development?Further expanding on topics around public libraries (and as a sister issue to a previous column), together with Renny Granda we ask if the Caracas Declaration for the Public Library (1982) and the Lyon Declaration on Access to Information and Development (2014) can allow us to follow a path toward s […]

Scientific production in Mexican universities: Rates and expectations toward competitiveness Together with Javier Tarango, we analyze issues of scientific production in Mexican universities. Abstract: This article analyzes emerging issues that Mexican universities are experiencing with scientific production processes, their impact on assessment indicators th […]

Latin American science is meant to be open access: Initiatives and current challenges Together with Dominique Babini, we summarize the rise of open access in the region and its main initiatives. Abstract: Latin American open access (OA) initiatives were built upon the foundations laid by the regional cooperative information networks, databases and indexes th […]

Thinking outside of literacy: Moving beyond traditional information literacy activities Abstract: A brief reflection on what might be becoming the traditional way of conducting information and digital literacy activities, together with some recommendations in order to move beyond these traditional grounds. This reflection is framed within this age of social […]

Developing Latin America: Is information enough to save the region? Abstract:Latin America does not exist. These 42 diverse and developing countries are hardly a union. However, they share geographical proximity, history, strangely unique elements, and the wish to progress. This first issue of a new column, ‘Developing Latin America’, explores some informati […]

Articles for the European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL) http://wp.me/s7eWr-ecil2013 The first European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL) took place on 22-25 October 2013, in Istambul, Turkey. I proposed two papers for this conference and I had the opportunity to get both accepted. It was great to have two papers selected among the quite i […]